Do you Think You Can Dance??

Trying my hand at Liveblogging the So You Think You Can Dance results show tonight at 8pm. Join me!

You had a bad day....

Had a bad teaching day? As beginning teachers, it's sure to happen (more often than you want it to!) And while our teaching will get better with more experience, the bad days don't stop. Unfortunately. As a person who gets wrapped up in her emotions, it can be hard to shake these bad day feelings and get back in the saddle to try again. Since I can't flip a switch and become an awesome teacher who will never make another mistake, I had to find a way to deal with the bad day blues.

First things first, I have to give myself some time to acknowledge those feelings. They are valid, and it's ok to be upset and disappointed when you don't live up to your expectations. Last week I let myself have my half-hour drive home for sad time. But then I got out of the car, and my sad time followed me out. I couldn't make myself snap out of the funk, convinced that I would never be a good teacher and filled with doom and gloom (don't worry, my teaching that day was NOT as bad as I felt like it was). So now I have a great idea (in my humble opinion...) for beating the bad day blues:

Had a bad day?
Make a bad day box!
(or folder, or document, or journal, or whatever works for you!)
Fill it with positive feedback from a mentor teacher, compliments and comments from students (my favorite so far - "I definitely won't forget THAT now!"), funny things heard in high school, a lesson plan you're extra proud of, photos, inspirational quotes, anything that will put a smile on your face...the sky is the limit!

What a great way to bust out of that funk and remember why you wanted to become a teacher in the first place. Give it a try, it just might help!

And if that doesn't work, listen to Daniel Powter's 'Bad Day' (a favorite of mine!) The video never fails to make me smile!

Technology on a Friday Night

I spent my Friday night creating a ning site for my Spanish 2 classes. Exciting Friday night plans, huh? It was actually kind of fun though, I enjoyed changing the format and deciding what to put on, etc. I tend to get caught up in projects, and this one definitely kept me occupied!

I'm still very unsure whether I will actually put it into use or not. The collision of worlds - social networking meets school! - scares me a little (to a lot!). One think I really like about ning is that it can be specific to my class, and I have all the say over the content. And because it's academically focused (in my case) and not as well known (to my knowledge), it allows me to keep a boundary between my professional life and personal life.

I feel much safer using ning or some other site (as opposed to facebook) to incorporate social networking with my teaching...but I continue to weigh the awesomeness of my ning page versus my fear of social networking in schools. Most likely I will attempt to launch it in one (or all) of my Spanish 2 classes in the winter semester and see how it goes, and whether or not I want to use it in the future.

But for now...I'm the only participant on the site so I've opened it up for public viewing. Check it out: Señorita Aho's ning site! I would love feedback and am very interested to hear your ideas about social networking in education.

Crazy for Claymation!

We learned how to do claymation in class this week, and I have to say it was a ton of fun. I'm still struggling to figure out how I would like to use it in my classroom, if I can. My students really seem to enjoy art-y activities, and I think they would have a BLAST with this. However, it's also very time-consuming, and I'm afraid it may eat up too much class time. It's something I need to spend some time thinking about, because I would really like to find a way to incorporate this activity. I know when we were done, all I wanted to do was come home and make claymation videos all day!

So, without further ado:



Claymation by Tricia Hewitt, Ingrid Macon, and myself, with help from Tiffany Liu. Spanish storyline by me! :)

Poor little clay folks fell down at the end, which just added to the humor.
This is the rated G version for my class :)

Long time, no blog

Well, I just realized I've taken a pretty extended blog-cation. When we broke from classes for the month of August, I pretty much took a vacation of all things MAC. And when I say pretty much...I mean completely. Really. No homework, no blogs, not even a single login to Twitter. And for some reason, I have been completely unable to get back in the saddle.

I did not mean to abandon you, dear blog, and faithful followers. I promise it's nothing personal.


I don't really feel like I have a whole lot to say right now, but I wanted to check in until I have more ideas to share. I haven't seen much technology in my placement so far. My mentor teacher uses the overhead projector a lot, which makes me feel warm and fuzzy because it reminds me of my own high school experience. But that's pretty much the extent of "technology." We will be spending Thursday in the computer lab working on a Dia de los Muertos project, but I think it's essentially internet research.

2 weeks from now, my methods class will be meeting in the computer lab for a technology lesson. We MAC-ers have the option of not going, because we have a whole course on technology, but I'm excited to learn about some technology specifically geared to foreign language teachers. We'll be creating a Jeopardy game, and I believe some other mystery language activities await me as well! Expect a report on that in a couple weeks!

Also, I will hopefully be reflecting on my first month or so in the classroom soon, but for now I am too burnt out to even try. (Fall break, maybe?)

But for now, signing off.
-Srta. Aho

Learning between the lessons

Like many of my fellow MACers, I too am struggling to find the relevance in some of the things we are learning. How are concept maps and taxonomy tables going to help me as a Spanish teacher? Well, I'm not exactly sure yet. But I have to say that I am learning a lot. While I'm learning some valuable content from our esteemed professors, I have to say that I am learning the most valuable and applicable lessons (for me, as a future teacher) between the lessons.


My lessons learned between the lessons:

• A safe learning environment is essential. If my students feel like they will be criticized for their contributions to the class, eventually they will just stop trying. (Hey-o! A Benchmark!)
• Things never go the way you've planned. Always prepare to be surprised!
• Some students who need some time to form their opinions before they are ready to share them--these students need to be included. Find a way to make this happen. Whether it be through blogs or discssion forums, giving them a heads up about a discussion topic, or just making sure they have an opportunity to share later in the conversation, make it work.
  
• I need to develop a thicker skin. If I can't learn to let things roll off my back, I'll be running away screaming before my first week of teaching has even come to a close.
• Even the most diligent overachieving student needs to take a day off from work now and then.
• Take the things that frustrate you and turn them into learning experiences.
  
• Although I am a very nervous public speaker, I can actually find a lot of confidence and ease when speaking about a topic I feel comfortable teaching.

Outlaw YouTube?

A lot of workplaces these days are filtering the online content their employees are able to access at work, schools included. Although I've spent my fair share of time sitting in front of a computer counting down the hours 'til the end of the workday, I understand why places of business do not want their employees messing around on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. But what if these so-called "time wasters" are actually valuable teaching tools in disguise? We've discussed the merits of using Twitter, wikis, and blogs in the classroom. And we all know how an occasional video can capture students' attention as they start zoning out mid-lecture. (And if a picture is worth a thousand words, how many words is a video worth...??) But doesn't it pose a problem when even the teachers are blocked from accessing these websites?! How do we get around this?

I understand that cyber-bullying is becoming an important issue, but will getting rid of these sites solve the problem? Or will it simply bring bullying back to the playground, as this suggests? (This issue is really a separate blog post....maybe you should keep an eye out for it in coming weeks!)


...if we ban YouTube in the classroom, students miss out on gems like this:



and




Nothing wrong with using a little Justin Timberlake to teach verb conjugation! And it gives me some great ideas for having my students make their own videos.....